Contractors Combined Insurance
A contractors combined policy puts everything a contracting business needs onto one schedule: employers' liability, public liability, the contract works themselves, your plant, your tools, and usually a handful of smaller covers that would be a nuisance to buy separately.
What Sits Inside A Combined Policy
It is not a different kind of cover from the individual policies. It is the same covers arranged as sections of one contract, with one insurer, one renewal date and one point of contact when something goes wrong. The reason that matters is gaps. When liability sits with one insurer and the contract works with another, a claim that touches both is where two insurers start pointing at each other, and you are the one standing in between.
It tends to suit contractors once there are employees, owned plant and real contract values involved. Below that, separate policies are often cheaper and perfectly adequate.
What Contractors Combined Insurance Covers
Employers' liability
The compulsory cover, normally at £10 million. Rated on wageroll including labour only subcontractors.
Public and products liability
Injury and damage to third parties, usually at £5 million or £10 million to match what main contractors ask for.
Contract works
The job itself while it is in progress. Materials, work in place and work in progress, up to a stated contract value. This is the contractors all risks section, sitting inside the package rather than bought on its own.
Owned and hired in plant
Your own plant against damage and theft, and your liability for plant you hire, which usually includes continuing hire charges while a damaged machine is off hire.
Tools and equipment
Hand tools and small plant, typically with conditions about overnight storage in a vehicle. The conditions are where most tool claims are lost.
Site huts, temporary buildings and employees' effects
The smaller sections that are awkward to buy separately: cabins and their contents, and personal belongings of staff while on site.
Where The Cover Stops
Wordings differ between insurers, so treat these as the usual position rather than as universal fact. Where one of them matters to you, it is worth checking on your own schedule before you need to.
Defective workmanship
As with any liability cover, the cost of redoing work you got wrong is excluded. The contract works section covers damage to the works from an insured peril, not the cost of correcting a mistake.
Contract values above the stated limit
The contract works section carries a maximum contract value. Take on a job above it and that job is uninsured unless you tell the insurer first. Growing contractors trip over this constantly.
Design and professional advice
If you design as well as build, the design element usually needs professional indemnity. Design and build contracts are the common gap.
Existing structures
The building you are working on is not the contract works. Damage to the existing structure needs either a care, custody and control extension or the principal's own policy to respond.
Combined Or Separate Policies?
There is no rule that a package is better. The case for separate policies is that you can shop each one independently and take the best price on each, which suits a smaller firm with liability and tools and not much else.
The case for combined gets stronger as the business grows. Once there are employees, owned plant, hired in plant and contracts with real values attached, running four policies means four renewals, four sets of declarations and four opportunities for a gap to open up. A combined schedule also tends to price better at that size, because the insurer is writing the whole account rather than cherry picked sections.
The practical trigger we see most often is the first claim that touches two policies at once. A fire that damages the works, the plant and a neighbour's property is three claims and one argument when it sits across three insurers.
Contractors Combined Is Not Contractors All Risks
These two get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Contractors all risks is cover for the contract works: the materials, the work in progress and the finished work before handover. It can be bought on its own, and for a contractor whose liability sits elsewhere, often is.
Contractors combined is the package. Contract works is one section of it, sitting alongside the liability covers, the plant and the tools. So every contractors combined policy contains contractors all risks cover, and plenty of contractors all risks policies are sold with nothing else attached.
If somebody has asked you for contractors all risks, they are asking about the works. If they have asked whether you are insured, they usually mean the liabilities. Our page on contractors all risks covers the works section in detail.
Declaring The Business Properly
A combined policy carries more declarations than a single liability policy, and each one is a place where a claim can come unstuck. Insurers will want estimated annual turnover, split by the type of work, wageroll split between manual and clerical, payments to both kinds of subcontractor, a plant schedule with values, a maximum contract value and a maximum contract period.
The two that move most during a year are turnover and maximum contract value. Both are usually subject to adjustment at the end of the period, so understating turnover does not save money, it defers it. Understating maximum contract value does not defer anything, it just leaves the biggest job you did that year outside the cover.
A five minute call when you win something larger than usual is the whole of the discipline required here.
What Moves The Price
We do not publish a starting price for this cover, because a figure that is not drawn from a policy we actually placed is worth nothing to you. What we can tell you is what the premium is built from.
- Turnover and the mix of work behind it
- Wageroll, split between manual and clerical
- Maximum contract value and maximum contract period
- Value of owned plant and typical hired in plant
- Depth of excavation, working height and any hot works
- Claims experience across all sections, not just liability
We are a broker, so we take it to several insurers rather than quoting one. Call 02382 000820 and you will have a real figure rather than a range.
What We Need To Quote
- Estimated turnover for the coming year, split by type of work
- Wageroll and payments to labour only and bona fide subcontractors
- The largest contract value you expect to hold, and for how long
- A plant schedule with make, model, year and value
- Tools sum insured and where they are kept overnight
- Five years of claims across every section
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Contractors all riskThe contract works section explained on its own, where that is all you need.
- Employers' liabilityThe compulsory section, and how wageroll drives the price of it.
- Plant insuranceOwned and hired in plant, including continuing hire charges.
- Tradesman insuranceThe trade version of this, with tools and van cover built around it.
- All trades A to ZCover written for your specific trade rather than the general product.
- Talk to a brokerTell us what you do and we will say which of these you actually need.
Common questions
What is the difference between contractors combined and contractors all risks?+
Contractors all risks covers the contract works themselves. Contractors combined is a package policy that contains the contract works as one section, alongside employers' liability, public liability, plant and tools. Every combined policy includes all risks cover on the works; not every all risks policy includes the liabilities.
Do I need a combined policy or separate ones?+
Separate policies often work out cheaper for a smaller firm with liability and tools. A combined policy tends to price better and carries less risk of a gap once you have employees, owned plant and contracts with real values. The deciding factor is usually size rather than preference.
Does it cover the building I am working on?+
Not as standard. The existing structure is separate from the contract works and usually needs either an extension for property in your care, custody and control, or for the principal's own policy to respond. Agree which before you start.
What happens if I take on a contract bigger than my limit?+
That contract falls outside the contract works section unless you tell the insurer and they agree to it. The rest of the policy continues as normal. This is the most common serious gap we see on growing contractors, and it is fixed with a phone call.
Is professional indemnity included?+
Usually not. If you design as well as build, or give advice that clients rely on, the design element typically needs separate professional indemnity. Design and build contracts are where this comes up.
Other cover we arrange
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